A Xenophile? (Part 1)

Kelly Chambers loved her job.

She enjoyed psychology for more than just 'getting to know people'. There were other privileges that understanding both human and alien psychology brought with it. She adored the part of her job that also meant taking her clothes off.

It was simple, she adopts the ego of an innocent and well-meaning girl who is interested in what the other has to say, a constructed personality that she still plays up to this day. She asks simple questions, allows them to talk, struts their ego. Most people, she has learned, just want to be heard and listened to; they don't look for someone to solve their problems.

This builds comfort and rapport between her and her subject; eventually she starts using first names, slowly standing closer to them, only when she knows they were comfortable. It's then that she begins to subtly attract them with these hidden cues, not expecting them to get it at first. Then she would openly flirt, something most other women didn't initiate themselves, and then she would lay on the attraction in all obviousness, putting down the good well-meaning girl that she acted out. That gave her an edge over most women; she did what others wouldn't.

It was a simple strategy. She had done this with both men and women since college, getting into the beds of whoever she cared to experience, whether it be a study partner, a classmate or even the professor.

So, there's no surprise that her skills and her 4.0 GPA in a psychology degree drew the interests of an Alliance Black Ops division gone rogue: Cerberus. With the satisfaction of her knowing her skills would be used for the greater concept of mankind, and a comfortably fat paycheck, she found her life's work.

And now, she was in the most daunting task of her pseudo-spy career.

The objective was two-fold: keep tabs on the commander of the operation and to 'motivate him'. That was what the Illusive Man tasked with her. She knew he had intended to manipulate every little circumstance to every minute detail so this Commander's operation could go as smoothly as possible. If it also meant surrounding him with attractive women, then it was all the better; why else would one think that Operative Lawson was his XO? Besides her heading Lazarus, of course.

She may not have been the genetic looker that Operative Lawson was, but she happened to be the commander's personal Yeoman. It's like a secretary; it's the closest to them and its someone he could perceive as having a 'personal' authority over, so compared to Miranda, Kelly had the advantage of potentially strutting the commander's ego. It's a perfect position to build comfort and rapport with him before 'motivating him'. Maintain her innocent girl-like charm, handle his emails and schedule and routinely evaluate him before reporting to their head.

This was Commander John A. Shepard, however. He was unlike any other subject she had dealt with. The psych profile that Lawson had forwarded her mentioned the extent of his service as well as a somewhat summary of his life before going navy. He was born on earth, his parents need not be mentioned, for they were absent most of his life; the report did mention he had a younger sister named Jane, who was a member of Colonial Security Forces of the Alliance colony of Elysium but died during the Skyllian Blitz. Any attempt at prompting the Commander to talk about her would be met with a stonewall silence. Perhaps this was, to Kelly's overconfidence, something she can exploit, that is, if she can get him to open up. The Battle on Elysium was a situation that was deteriorating every single second, leading him to inherit command of the team of soldiers due to all other officers being down…and got all of them killed; the mission succeeded with him being the only one left standing. Most traumatically he had died and just came back, something that would likely drive any normal person crazy. Perhaps it was this that explained just how awkwardly distant he was.

And upon her own evaluation of his behavior, he was someone who she can easily read as bottling up all his emotions under a guise of stout morality as if he's some superhero; if she was to make a guess, she would say he genuinely believed it, practically to a fault. His entire profile carried something that can be exploited, yet it was always just his 'mood' that he would open up about, and his boring routine. He would say nothing of his traumatic past.

Because of this, the execution of her plan was rough. Shepard was almost aloof toward the entire Cerberus crew. She could tell based on his behavior that he didn't implicitly trust anyone except the pilot, Moreau. He talked with people, tried to maintain good connections; he had to. He would only trust them less if he didn't. It was only logical to her since she would do the very same thing. They even went as far as to get Dr. Chakwas on board to settle him in with familiar faces.

Chambers thought all this before she watched the deck elevator opened to see Shepard within it, hands behind his back in that astute, upright military stance that he so awkwardly took when he couldn't think of anyway else to stand. He did not come out, however; he clearly wasn't on his way to the CIC. As his Yeoman, she knew his schedule; in fact she had planned this. She knew he would be up at this time and ride the elevator down, a routine he had committed to thoroughly. It was her set now. Chambers acknowledged him with a side eye and a smirk, and slowly strode her way into the elevator with a slight feminine sway in her hips. She kept eye contact with him, though she noted that he struggled to do the same, his pupils darting from her eyes to her hips then directly in front of him. From that sign she knew she had the advantage here; she had caught his eye. Nonetheless, he remained his stoic self besides this one hint he gave away.

"Commander," she acknowledged him in a low tone.

"Chamb-eh, Kelly…" he responded. She knew he still struggled with using her first name like she so sweetly asked of him before, to which he reluctantly agreed.

"How are you this morning?" she asked him, placing herself next to him, a little closer than they usually would, but he wasn't paying close enough attention to notice.

"Good enough," he answered, plainly.

"Not great?" she questioned. "Maybe we should schedule some more one-on-one time."

"Maybe," He put, plainly once more. Not so talkative, as usual, she had noted. She had also noted his yawn, bringing his hand up to cover his open mouth before returning it behind his back.

"Up all-night reading Aurelius again?" she inquired, leaning into some of the personal things she knew about him that she got from the talks she had to coax out of him. He often ended his days with reading paperback books, he particularly enjoyed the ancient stoic texts, she had learned.

"Epictetus actually," he said…plainly…

"Hm…" she throated. "Maybe you can tell me about it when we schedule our next session."

"Maybe." A brief pause came between them as the elevator door closed and started moving so achingly slow down to deck 3. To Kelly, however, this horridly slow elevator made this her perfect hunting ground.

"You know, John…" she said, voicing his first name in an even more seductive tone. "I would imagine a man like you would be doing more…physical things in your cabin late at night than reading philosophy." Shepard turned his pupils off in her direction, feeling a light discomfort with her using his first name with that voice. He hesitated to answer but did eventually find one.

"I…do have my routine," he said. "But that doesn't come until noon assuming there's no mission."

"No, I mean…" she turned her head toward him, eyeing his form from bottom to top, "with someone."

"Only other person on this ship that I know of who does calisthenics is Jacob," he said, letting what isn't said hang over.

"And what about a woman?" Kelly pressed.

"Uh…Jack, maybe, but I don't know."

"So…" Kelly turned to him fully, closed what little space there was between them, and tenderly stroked her left hand up his ribs just beneath his right pec. "No one has claimed you, then?" Shepard was at a loss for words at this. The friendly girl that was sometimes his psychiatrist was doing…this. She pressed on, and he reacted by backing up against the wall, using his hands and hind side for support. As he looked down at her, he noticed how she eyed his chest, swaying her hips and her head in unison, lips parted as she exhaled out her mouth. She traced her fingertips up the ridge between his pecs.

Lawson, his XO did almost the same thing a week ago, just that she wasn't a redhead. Because of that, the weird thought had crossed Shepard's mind that maybe this was Cerberus protocol for female operatives fraternizing with men, being touchy feely like this. I mean…this wasn't the Alliance anymore, after all.

Nonetheless, the unexpectedly forward action from his Yeoman sent a heat to his forehead, and he gulped. Kelly noted this, believing she had him in the palm of her hand.

"You know," she said, tracing circles across his chest with her fingertips. "I hear a lot of things about you."

"Uh, yeah, word about me goes around, I imagine."

"The women on board, they talk about you; how they look at you, the things they want from you…" She slid her hand from her tips to her palm as she stroked his upper chest. "It makes me kind've jealous."

"…Why would it make you jealous?"

Kelly added her other hand to physical touching, mimicking her already engaged hand as she gently massaged his shoulders and traps, gluing herself up against his form to a point where her c-cups pressed up on his left rib cage, for he only faced her at an angle. She had him cornered.

"Because…I'd rather be the one to make them jealous," she said. Her hand, so keen on her strategy, dropped down and grabbed his waist, a little too close to his glute, and one rested behind his shoulder as she hung on him. "I know you John. Everything about you, even. You are brave, faithful and…" she briefly looked down where her left hand was, brushing down his glute and gripping so that it cups beneath it's hang, "oh so strong."

Now Shepard was uncomfortable, he couldn't mistake that. In fact, this reminded him of the time on the old Normandy when Liara confessed to him after they only spoke 3 times; it was a strange conversation. This was that, just with more glute cupping.

"Kelly…" he said. This brought the Yeoman's gaze upward, but she didn't meet his eyes, instead they found his neck as she planned to do something before they left the elevator. A common trick she did that made all her lovers remember her; she would leave them with a hickey before going off. She did that with all the boys who felt insecure with her forwardness, just like Shepard was here.

But suddenly her strategy was cut short when the ping of the elevator reaching its destination sounded, and the doors slid open. Kelly looked and saw they were…on the Engineering deck? But what's more awkward was their…Quarian Chief Engineer standing with her arms crossed in waiting and had suddenly perked up at the sight of them. Shepard's attention went from his shrinking self to excitement as his attention turned completely away from Kelly.

"Oh, Tali!" Shepard greeted, then forced himself without struggle out of Kelly's embrace, quickly striding out of the elevator and into Tali's space. In spite of Kelly's unpleasant surprise of her failure, she observed how eager he was to be in the Quarian's distance. "Good coincidence, I was just coming to see you."

"Oh…Shepard," She replied, "so was I." Kelly could see she put her hands on her hips, and her visor turn in her direction. With attention to detail, she could see Tali's glowing eyes underneath turn to slits, and she couldn't mistake it: Tali was menacingly glaring at her. "Was I…interrupting something?" Her emphasis on the word 'interrupting' and her low voice, and Kelly could tell that this alien girl was not the least bit happy with what she saw.

"No, Chambers and I were just discussing the schedule," Shepard had replied, so surely.

"…Right" Tali said. Shepard briefly glanced at Kelly who was still in the elevator stuck perplexed at what she was seeing. I cant see her face…but her glare is so obvious.

"Chambers, were you getting off on deck 4?" Shepard asked. He didn't call me Kelly, he didn't even bother to struggle to call me that, he just forgot about it. But he called her by her first name…wait, that distance between them is short, that eye contact with her, did he…LIKE her?

"Um…no," Kelly pulled herself out of her thoughts.

"Oh…okay then, I should go." After Shepard said this, Kelly hit the button for the 3rd deck, not for a second taking her eye off the Quarian, whom she could feel was giving her a lowkey side eyed warning as she engaged with her captain. "So how's the Dextro food on board for you? Gardner doing any good?"

"Not even remotely," Tali replied. The elevator door started shutting in front of Kelly as she watched them walking off, their conversation fading.

"Maybe I can get ready made dextro MREs for you and Garrus–"

Kelly stood there in silent perplexment. Well, this is an unexpected development. Phewy, I guess I won't get to pounce him.

But the disappointment evaporated, Kelly realized she still had a mission, and that hadn't changed. She still needed to 'motivate him'. But now the parameters changed. Now she realized what he truly wanted; she just didn't expect the 'Hero of Humankind' to be a xenophile. I guess she could relate…she had slept with a few Asari and a Turian. She couldn't really blame him. Quarian physiology has so much in common with humans, and Tali'Zorah has, to what Kelly would say…a feminine emphasis. Kelly would've slept with her too if not for the fear of endangering her.

Possibly…a…threesome…? No. With that immune system? Even YOU have principles, girl.

Ok. Time to play match maker then…